Hi - long story short... A provider (who became SO and then ex SO) texted me that unless I gave her $ , she would tell my family about my hobby.  Have the texts. What do I do?

But that's me!

If you give her a nickel be prepared for this to continue.

Put her on ignore and get on with your life.  If she wants to call your family she doesn't need your permission.  And if you have a decent relationship with your family the story you'll tell them will be VERY different than anything that "bat shit crazy" ex-SO can concoct.

Move on with your life and forget this gal ever existed.

Extortion is a serious crime and a felony in most jurisdictions.  

She it turning a "nobody gives a fuck" misdemeanor blowjob into a serious "you get to go spend a few years in prison" felony.  

I'd tell her what you have, and maybe point her in the right direction to look up the penalties for extortion in whatever jurisdiction you are living in.

Remember the David Letterman deal?  

Good luck - hope it all turns out ok for you!!

PM if you prefer.

Hugs and Kisses,
Kelly

Thx everyone.

Kelly - I sent you a pm. Feeling pretty burned right now and wondering where's the honor among thieves. Leaning towards police

Retain a lawyer. Give him/her everything you have regarding this lady. If it is not enough personal info to ID her, then do some homework. Then have the lawyer contact her and explain quite gently, but firmly that you have retained him/her with the following instructions.

1. If the lady continues, report the matter to the police. He/she will also explain the severity of the crime.
2. Do everything possible to protect you and assure that she is punished for this severe crime.
3. Assure that she does not receive a dime for this.

Regardless of whether you go after her with the lawyer, I would retain a lawyer before going to the police.

Having worked through this scenario, I am pretty much in CCPA's camp - I would tell her to go ahead, offer her contact info. Then I would explain to her that doing this would surely cause me some personal difficulties, but nowhere near as bad as paying a blackmailer, so have at it. She may try a few tentative probes to see if you will squirm and give her some cash, but since outing you will do nothing positive for her and will be effectively creating evidence that she is committing a serious felony, it is very unlikely she does that unless she is just plain angry with you and crazy.

And get a very good story ready for the family about how you met this lady at a hotel bar late one night, got into a conversation, and while drinking too much seem to have revealed a lot of info about your personal life to her. And now she has turned out to be a combination stalker/blackmailer.

Honestly, the odds this turns into nothing are very high. She is testing to see if you are an easy mark - once it becomes clear you are not, she will look for the next easy score.

zig

She knows my family. Extended LTR. Talking to attorney soon.

So the gal is some SO that has been a part of your life, knows your family and such.

So her babbling nonsense to them would have what value?  

Frankly you have left a lot out of here I'm sure.  But if spending money to tell your story to some lawyer is going to make you feel better...have at it.

Ignore this gal and get on with your life.  Or tell us what the real shit she has on you, and that may change opinions. Sounds like you just met a bat shit crazy woman with an agenda.  And didn't figure this out for some period of time.

Now grow a backbone and move on.  If this gal wants to create more drama than what you are sharing here, let her have her 15 minutes.  Why would you really care?  Because she'll blab shit to some family members that know her as the gal you're dating...and NOW she's a hooker.  Heaven forbid!

Obviously leaving elements out as she may read this.... Nothing else on me. Ready to move on, just disgusted she crossed this line. Just don't want to deal w bs, don't want to deal w family, want her to go away.  But as you put it ccpa - it does seem pretty flimsy now. Thx for perspective.

-- Modified on 5/30/2012 6:16:19 PM

In general, because of their hypergamous orientation in which (excluding those with psycho-emotional damage) every woman wants and believes she deserves the very best of all men, and because in practice in a predominantly monogamous society those men are not available, it is very rare for a woman not to see herself as settling or compromising in any man she chooses.

This problem is further exacerbated by systems that give a woman an extremely skewed view of her own value in the mating marketplace. For example, a 40 lb overweight 45 year old woman with nice pictures can post a personal ad and get 40 responses daily, no sweat. This gives her the impression that she can truly command that much male attention in real life, when in fact she cannot. If she went on dates with those guys, she would either reject them or they would reject her in most cases. Though, due to differences in sexual desire, pretty much any woman can get laid by SOME man if she wants, getting laid by Mr. Perfect is an entirely different matter.

Either way, in most cases a woman sees herself as settling. This impression is enhanced when her time of optimal mate value drops with her fertility, which falls off a cliff at age 35 and reaches near zero by age 50. So she considers her time extremely valuable. This is why a woman is far more likely than a man to end a relationship. And if she believes that a man has deliberately wasted her time? Her precious time because every day that passes the potential quality of replacement mates she can attract declines? Oh boy --- she is going to be LIVID.

So just in dealing with women in general, because they feel they settled in the first place and unless you give them the white fence and happily ever after they have been cheated ... they will, in general, feel deeply wronged, self-righteously indignant and believe they have a right to compensation.

This applies, incidentally, even if the failure of the relationship was her fault. This is because it is extremely rare for a woman to admit to practically any wrongdoing in a relationship other than having picked YOU -- the wrong man. Because anything she did wrong is the man's fault. This is a result of solipsism that is actively encouraged in our culture.

I realize there are exceptions to this, but overall this has been my observation as politically incorrect as it may be.

Okay -- all the above applies to relationships with civies. Most of it in most cases applies just as well to providers. But with providers, there are added aspects.

For example, quite often providers deliberately run hobbyists through far more verification -- and extremely asymmetric disclosure -- and stuff than is actually needed to establish safety. The reason why it would extend beyond that needed for safety? And the guy works for days gathering information and contacting people just so he can see that girl for one lousy hour? So she can establish a power dynamic in her favor -- create an environment from the very get-go where in reality she is boss and in control. If you do something bad to her -- sometimes just NCNS -- she can plaster your real name on the Internet to destroy you. But if she does the exact same thing to YOU? Nothing even remotely as bad in terms of retaliation is available.

Just LOOK at the national black list. There are thousands and thousands of examples where providers have, just over a missed $200-$300 appointment, thrown a guy's information out there where it can destroy his job, his marriage if he is married and everything else. I understand that a great many providers have better ethics than that, but just consider a mindset that is so tilted in terms of what constitutes "justice" that the woman considers you losing a $100k+/yr job to be perfectly reasonable punishment for wasting three hours of her time. So this is the normal civie woman attitude -- but on serious steroids.

Okay, think about that a second and then combine it with the civie stuff. Now let me throw another wrench in the gears.

SOMETIMES a provider is perfectly justified in seeking what might be called "Sex worker alimony" from an SO. Why?

Because a lot of guys can't handle the fact that she has had her mouth on 12 penises in the past week before she saw them. And thus, the guys pressure the providers into cutting back on providing or even quitting.

It can be REALLY HARD for even a great provider to build back business. There are whales that used to pay for weekends in vegas that they lost as customers, other customers who used to be regulars who have moved on to be someone else's regulars, lost contacts of all sorts. Even if a sex worker just cuts back 50%, it can take her a good solid 6 months to build her business back. And if she quit completely for any length of time? It can take years in some cases.

This is a SERIOUS loss in income and a serious loss in ability to support herself and her kids if she has them.

Now, if, for example, you whine about a sex worker's work and she cuts back, and you tell her that if she can't make rent she can just move in with you ... and then when the shit hits the fan you are mysteriously out of town or not answering your phone? Or you dump her the second she starts catching on that you never stopped hobbying when you quitting hobbying was a condition of the relationship?

She has no LEGAL right to compensation, of course -- but she certainly has a moral one.

In practice, because of the sense of proportion, though some providers would have fair demands, some will demand far more than their actual damages. This is just another manifestation of the same mindset that sees a guy losing a $100k+ job as suitable recompense for wasting 3 hrs of her time. If a woman would completely out a guy over an NCNS -- and not all sex workers would but the NBL is stark proof that MANY WILL -- why wouldn't she threaten to out you for money she feels she is owed?

Of course, quite apart from this there are other issues. Did you leave her hanging for unpaid rent and utilities? Did she buy you a car and you never repaid her? I have found that many sex workers are incredibly generous people with those they love. And many of them are tolerant to a fault. They are almost ideal in those respects because they are well aware of the million ways civie girls screw up.

If you have left unpaid expenses behind, she could very legitimately demand those.

You get the idea? You have left a lot of blanks. And even though I feel the blackmail is shameful, wrong and ought to be actionable, it may well be -- depending on circumstances -- that you owe her every penny she wants.

Interesting thoughts and theory, not true in this case. I paid for everything, i didnt receive the generous outlays. I quit hobbying, she went UTR.   I didn't air the details bc I wanted to deal with the issue at hand, the blackmail. While I understand and respect your opinions here, I would have to point to your handle and remind you I don't owe her anything as love and what ever other decisions she made are her own choice.  I believe Ayn Rand spoke quite forcefully on this matter.

Okay -- dovetailing on what you have stated and stipulating its truth ...

Love is a response to values, and romantic love combines that with physical attraction. Whatever need she might have does not constitute a mortgage on your life. You only owe for obligations (i.e. explicitly contracted debts) and her assertion of debt doesn't constitute anything morally binding. And her threat of force in order to collect an invalid debt IS wrong.

Basically, her self-centric attitudes are at least narcissistic and borderline psychopathic. And the threat of blackmail pretty much clinches the deal she's a psychopath.  

The point I am making in a roundabout way is that the character of a girl is her single most important attribute, and if she'd screw up some guy's entire life over 3 hours of her time? She's not someone one should be involved with romantically because its just a matter of time before she applies that underlying attitude to *you*.

Of course, psychopaths are great at hiding their natures. Because we tend to project ourselves, those of us who aren't psychopaths never suspect.

But once it is done?

Well, in MA there is only one precedent for a blackmailed client having his name kept mum under a court order. In general, to handle this criminally and file a complaint, you are going to have to make some uncomfortable admissions that will be public record.

I have seen some people have some degree of success with threatening to do that without having to actually follow through. But if you are going to threaten to file a criminal complaint, you should be willing to follow through otherwise if she calls your bluff you'll be screwed.

Another approach is to stop hobbying, tell everyone she would inform that you USED to hobby a bit and thereby immunize yourself to the disclosure and tell her to pound sand.

It is also possible that this could be handled civilly through a lawyer. Threatening to sue her for the blackmail may have an effect, but how much of an effect depends on her circumstances. And, of course, such a lawsuit would be much more compelling if it were preceded by a successful criminal prosecution.

One thing you might also consider is a peace bond. (Basic explanation here: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-peace-bond.htm) You can sometimes get a peace bond ex parte (depends on the state you are in) and violation of it could lead to automatic jailing, much like a restraining order.

If you are good at DIY lawyering, you might also consider obtaining an injunction. In NH, DIY lawyering is pretty easy. Same in GA. But in some other states (like NY) it is more difficult.

Either way -- save those texts!!

What I did while hobbying is I did it in tandem with legitimate funded research on prostitution so I always had a very provably legitimate reason to be in the company of sex workers and even pay them. Everyone around me knew about this research, so some wild allegation would have minimal impact unless accompanied with pretty impressive proof. Probably too late for that now, but that sort of thing is something to consider for the future.

Thank you for the advice. I can certainly see the logic.

Best advice right here.......don't pay the bitch a dime. She will only end up hitting on you again in the future. Also......out her here. We need to know who this bitch is so nobody else gets entangled.

Outting you would out herself!!  What's the logic in that?   Blackmail is a serious crime.  Because of your involvement with her, going to the Police is a fine line without incriminating yourself.  For that reason, I would go to an attorney if you must report it to the Police & let him handle it.  Deriving benifit from her illegal activities you be construded in the same catagory as a pimp.   I wouldn't think she'd be so willing to come out but one never knows.  Maybe she thinks she can out you without revealing what she's been doing all along...  but if she has a membership here or ads anywhere then you have as much on her as she does on you.  
A restraining order might stil be a good idea.
HV

 

Big shout out and thank you to beauty with brains! Thanks Kelly for your counsel and recommendations!